Extractions: As a child, Jan Brett decided to be an illustrator and spent many hours reading and drawing. She says, "I remember the special quiet of rainy days when I felt that I could enter the pages of my beautiful picture books. Now I try to recreate that feeling of believing that the imaginary place I'm drawing really exists. The detail in my work helps to convince me, and I hope others as well, that such places might be real." As a student at the Boston Museum School, she spent hours in the Museum of Fine Arts. "It was overwhelming to see the room-size landscapes and towering stone sculptures, and then moments later to refocus on delicately embroidered kimonos and ancient porcelain," she says. "I'm delighted and surprised when fragments of these beautiful images come back to me in my painting." Travel is also a constant inspiration. Together with her husband, Joe Hearne, who is a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Jan visits many different countries where she researches the architecture and costumes that appear in her work. "From cave paintings to Norwegian sleighs, to Japanese gardens, I study the traditions of the many countries I visit and use them as a starting point for my children's books."

Extractions: This interview was an interesting one for me, i grew up with these kids, and a few years ago when i heard that these two characters were starting a band, i expected little or nothing. all of a sudden, especially within the past 6 months, they are all i hear about, and i've heard their first release, "The Submarnines Save Rock and Roll" and performed with them, and found them to be one of the coolest punk bands in the Ann Arbor/Toledo area, based on their raw straight attack at rock and roll, and also because of their passion for the classics, and Andy Breakheart, I'm looking in yr direction with the Chuck Berry-esque lead work. So we sat down together to get it all out in the open.

Extractions: Featured Elementary Video Author Visit the home of award-winning author and illustrator Jan Brett and hear her describe her early love of books and just how she turns her stories into beautiful works of art. Jan spends lots of time researching and even traveling to far away countries to create the detailed illustrations in her books. Hear how her last trip to China inspired the charming animals in her book Daisy Comes Home Find out more about author Jan Brett Daisy is the smallest of six hens, and the other hens constantly pick on her. When she leaves the coop to go sleep on the riverbank, she awakens to find she is floating down the river in a basket. Now she must use what the other hens have taught her to survive and find her way home. Next author Teacher Resource Center Online Activities Center Book Fairs ... Teacher Store

Extractions: GLINDA'S BUBBLE SATURDAY, MARCH 15 W/ HAL GERARD Glinda's Bubble rocks Mickey Finn's Pub, Saturday, March 15, in Toledo, OH, with special guest Hal Gerard. With their last packed show at Finn's, more and more people of all ages are starting to tune into G.B's unique brand of noveau- retro-ambient- techno-acoustic-rock- danger- folk- metal, every show with something new (some new techno twangs this time). Opening is Hal Gerard, a great songwriter and one of the coolest guitar players you'll hear around. No kidding. Beautiful, powerful, unsettling...Glinda's Bubble is music by Phyllis Dwyer, on guitar in original open tunings, supported by a power pop unit and interesting, quirky arrangements. Phyl has her roots in acoustic music, but her songwriting has led her to grow and experiment with an ever-widening variety of settings and moods...backed by a group of musicians devoted to the Girl Genius, Glinda's Bubble shares a unique voice and vision.

Extractions: Our hearts and prayers are with our armed forces and their families. My husband and I are grateful for the sacrifices that America's military make to preserve the freedom of our country. We think of all of the families at home waiting for their loved ones to return and we are proud and thankful to the military for their dedication to our country.

Jan Brett : Teacher Resource File Teacher resource file presents a biography, book list, and lesson plans based on the work of this writer and illustrator. jan brett Teacher Resource File http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/brett.htm

Extractions: Jan Brett, one of our most popular authors and illustrators, was born on December 1, 1949 in Hingham, Massachusetts. She achieved that status through very hard work. She went to school at Colby Junior College from 1968-1969 and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School in 1970. Today, she lives in the seacoast town of Norwell, Massachusetts , an historic area on the South Shore, and spends her summers in the mountains where she does a lot of work on her books. She writes her own books and also adapts and illustrates folktales. As an illustrator, she does the illustrations of books by other authors as well. For those of us who love her books, we can appreciate the many hours she spends in putting many details in her books. That's important to her, too. It takes her about a year to finish one book.

Extractions: Fiction Booklist Archive Booklist Index ... Booklist Home Page How to subscribe to Booklist Magazine Brett, Jan. The Hat. Sept. 1997. 32p. illus. Putnam, $16.95 (0-399-23101-3). Ages 4-8. Hedgie the hedgehog makes the best of a bad situation when a red woolen stocking blows off Lisa's laundry line and becomes stuck on his prickles. He is embarrassed at first, but when the mother hen laughs and asks what's on his head, he tells her, "Why, it's my new hat. Isn't it beautiful?" The goose, the dog, and the other animals laugh in turn. As with many of Brett's books, this one follows more than one line of action as it progresses: in side panels Lisa goes about simple daily tasks until she realizes her stocking is missing, and the laundry line shown in a box at the top of the page gradually empties. At the end of the story, we see the animals arrayed in brightly colored woolen mittens, scarves, and sweaters, with Hedgie, relieved of his stocking, thinking how silly they all look. This original story may not have quite the resonance of Brett's enormously and justifiably popular book The Mitten (1989), a retelling of a Ukrainian folk tale, but it has charm and humor in its own right. Children will love looking at the side and top panels and predicting what is going to happen next. The setting is the Danish countryside (detailed down to the moss on a tree) on a day when the first snow begins to fall, and Brett conveys the season with such loving spirit that children will almost wish for winter.

Extractions: Pick up your copy Today! You can help fund this site at no cost to you! If you shop at Amazon.com bookstore use This Page each time you enter Amazon.com. More information Teaching PreK-8 Magazine Subscribe now for only $14.97 (US rate). Any editions listed to the right (such as "paperback") will link you to Amazon.com Bookstore where you can purchase the title. Search Amazon.com This review by Carol Otis Hurst first appeared in Teaching K-8 Magazine Review You may know the earlier version of the same basic story by Alvin Tresselt, The Mitten (Lothrop, 1964 ISBN 0-688-51053-1 Library Binding ). Jan Brett has put her own spin on the familiar folk theme of a shelter which stretches to accommodate each new occupant. This time it's a boy, Nicki, who begs his grandmother, Baba, to knit him a pair of white mittens. In spite of her warnings that he will lose them and that they will be hard to find in the snow, he insists and she finally does so.